ABSTRACT
Maladaptive actions and processes do not succeed in reducing vulnerability to climate change impacts; instead, they increase it (McCarthy et al. 2001) and/ or reduce the capacity to cope with the negative effects of climate change. Maladaptation may deliver short-term benefits (e.g. financial profit) but will lead to harmful consequences in the medium-and long-term perspective (Lim et al. 2004). It may be evident that maladaptation should be avoided, but this can be more difficult than one might imagine. It is important to understand what maladaptation is and how it can be caused. According to the IPCC (2001), maladaptation is adaptation that “does not succeed in reducing vulnerability but increases it instead”. Later publications have extended this definition to include the following actions (Nelson et al. 2007, Prutsch et al. 2010, Barnett & O’Neill 2010):
s¬ Actions that increase vulnerability, or through which the capacity to cope with the negative effects of climate change is decreased (e.g. adaptation that is ineffective or may reduce short-term vulnerability but increases vulnerability in the longer term, or increases vulnerability elsewhere, such as hard flood prevention measures in one area that increase risks for downstream systems).
